Operation Returning Echo | |||||
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Part of the Gaza–Israel conflict | |||||
Map of Gaza Strip and Israel border | |||||
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Belligerents | |||||
Israel | Popular Resistance Committees Palestinian Islamic Jihad | ||||
Casualties and losses | |||||
23 civilians wounded [1] | 18 militants and 5 civilians killed; [2] 74 wounded (mostly civilians) [2] |
Operation Returning Echo [3] (מבצע הד חוזר) was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military operation in the Gaza Strip from March 9 until March 14, 2012. It was the worst outbreak of violence covered by the media in the region since the 2008–2009 Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead). [4]
On March 9, Israel carried out a targeted air strike in the Gaza Strip killing Zohair al-Qaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). Another militant was also killed in the strike, as well as seriously injuring a man nearby. [5] According to the IDF, though the PRC denies this, Al-Qaisi had overseen the 2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks, which killed eight Israelis including six civilians. [6] Israeli officials said that he was preparing the final stages of a new mega-attack that could have claimed multiple lives. [7] Palestinian militant groups retaliated [8] [9] by launching rocket attacks on Israel, with over 300 Grad missiles, Qassam rockets and mortar shells launched, of which 177 hit Israeli territory [10] striking the major urban centers of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba, as well as smaller communities.[ citation needed ] Twenty-three Israelis were injured, all of them civilians, and schools throughout southern Israel were kept closed for most of the week to protect students from rocket fire. Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted many of the Palestinian-launched projectiles aimed at large cities, shooting down 56 rockets in 71 attempts. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]
Israel attacked with 37 air strikes on Gazan weapons storage facilities, rocket launching sites, weapon manufacturing facilities, training bases, posts, tunnels and militants, killing 22, mostly from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the others from the Popular Resistance Committees. Four civilians were killed as well. [17] [18] [19] Another 74 Palestinians were reportedly injured during the conflict, mostly civilians. [2] Some deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians during the escalation, which were reported as casualties of the clashes, were later shown to be unrelated to Israeli actions. [20] [21]
The United States, France, and an official from the United Nations condemned the Palestinian attacks, and the US stressed that Israel has the right to defend itself. [22] [23] The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League, Syria, Egypt and Iran condemned Israel's responsive air strikes on militants. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] On March 13, Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Hamas did not participate in the fighting directly, and insisted that all-out war would "be devastating to the Palestinian people." [29]
On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably 12 militants in four groups. [30] The militants first opened fire at an Egged No. 392 bus as it was traveling on Highway 12 in the Negev near Eilat. [31] [32] Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians. [33] Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special Unit police officer and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack. [34] [35] The Israeli security forces reported eight attackers killed, and Egyptian security forces reported killing another two. [30]
In the afternoon, a strike on a car in Gaza City killed Zohair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, and his collaborator, Mahmoud Hanani. According to Israel, al-Qaisi was killed because he was in the process of organizing a large terrorist attack to be carried out on Israel's border with Gaza. Al-Qaisi was one of the masterminds of the 2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks, which killed eight Israelis. Hanani was one of the Palestinians freed from Israel as part of the deal to free Gilad Shalit in 2011. [36]
On the same day, Palestinians increased the daily rocket barrage on Israel injuring three persons and causing a traffic accident in which two were wounded. The Israeli Air Force killed 15 more militants and a civilian in retaliatory attacks. [37] The Iron Dome successfully intercepted 90% of the rockets targeted. [38] On March 10, attacks on Israel continued, without causing damage. [39] Several Palestinians were killed while preparing to fire rockets. Militants fired guns in the air and crowds chanted "Revenge, revenge!" during funeral processions in Gaza City. [40] Particulars of individual Palestinian rocket attacks on March 9:
Particulars of Palestinian rocket attacks:
As of March 11, over a hundred rockets were fired on Israel in three days. More than thirty rockets were intercepted as of March 11, only those that were heading towards population centres. Overnight, IAF struck new targets in Gaza, killing two Palestinians. [62]
Palestinians fired at least 39 rockets into Israel on March 11. [63] Particulars of individual attacks:
On March 12, Israel carried out nine raids against military targets. [75]
Islamic Jihad confirmed two of its members were killed. In another attack, five civilians were struck. A 16-year-old school boy was killed on March 12, though his death was later shown to be unrelated to Israeli actions. [20] 24 people, including children, were wounded in a pre-dawn strike on Gaza city. [75]
Schools in southern Israel remained closed. [75]
Palestinians fired 42 rockets into Israel. [76] Particulars of individual attacks:
An informal ceasefire was reached early on March 13. Despite this, Palestinians fired at least 7 rockets and 10 mortars at Israel throughout the day. [11] Particulars of individual attacks:
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians continued to launch missiles into Israel. Around 7 pm, a Grad rocket fired at Beersheba was intercepted by Iron Dome. A second rocket landed in an empty field. Neither projectile caused injuries or damage. [113] Following the attack, local authorities announced that schools in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Gan Yavne and the Bnei Shimon Regional Council would be closed for March 15. Some schools had been open on March 14 after the recent escalation was perceived as having ended. [114] Israel responded to the attack with air strikes on an infiltration tunnel and a rocket launching site. [115]
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired a barrage of rockets into Israel. The attacks were praised by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who, in a Hezbollah graduation ceremony, lauded the fact that "the resistance was able to force a million and half a million of Israelis to stay in shelters". [116] Details of individual attacks:
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired a rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council. [121]
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired a rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage. [122]
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired a rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage. [123]
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired a rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council. Later, a mortar shell was fired into the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. This was followed moments later by a second mortar shell fired at Israel Defense Forces soldiers near the border fence. No injuries or damage were reported in any of the attacks. [124] [125] [126]
Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians fired three mortar shells into the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage. [127]
On 12 March, 16-year-old Nayef Qarmut was killed and six other teenagers were injured in an apparent explosion near Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for medical services in the Hamas-ruled territory, said that Qarmut was killed by an Israeli air strike. The Israel Defense Forces, however, denied that any air strikes had taken place in that time and location. An Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene said there were no signs of any impact consistent with an air strike, and that the most likely cause of the teen's death was an explosive device he was carrying. [20]
On 14 March, Adham Abu Selmiya said that 8-year-old Barka al-Mugrahbi died of wounds sustained in the same purported air strike which he had said killed Nayef Qarmut. However, on the same day, witnesses and relatives said that the boy was killed by being struck in the head by an errant bullet when gunmen were firing in the air during a Gazan funeral procession for a militant. [128] Abu Selmiya corrected his account, blaming his original account on "wrong information" from the hospital. [21]
About 300 rockets being fired by militants from Gaza. [16] On 10 March 2012, The Jerusalem Post reported an Iron Dome success rate of shooting down 90% of rockets launched from Gaza the system engaged (rockets which will land in unpopulated areas are ignored) [129] and there were no Israeli casualties, whether civilian or military. The success of the Iron Dome system was widely acclaimed on the Israeli side.
The United Nations, the United States and France condemned the Palestinian attacks, and the US stressed that Israel has the right to defend itself. [22] [130] The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League and Egypt condemned Israel's air strikes on militants. [24] [26] [131] [132]
The result, according to Leor Sapir, brought five strategic benefits to Israel: (1) it enabled a new weapon system to be tested in an authentic operational setting: (2) it provided crucial data to check if Iron Dome's technology met its original expectations. (3) It inspired both confidence in the system's capabilities and set realistic expectations: (4) It enabled, in a controlled conflict to get the Gaza terrorist infrastructure to waste a significant number of rockets: (5) Above all, activating Iron Dome has a deterrent effect by sending with its 76% hit-rate a powerful message to Iran and Hezbollah. [133]
Some images of children in the conflict were outdated and caused controversy. During the March 2012 Gaza-Israel clashes, Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tweeted a photo of an Israeli woman and her two children ducking a Gaza rocket describing it as "when a rocket fired by terrorists from Gaza is about to hit their home." When it was proved the photo was from 2009 he said "I never stated that the photo was current." [134] During that period Khulood Badawi, an Information and Media Coordinator for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, tweeted a picture of a Palestinian child covered in blood. She was criticized because the child was killed in 2006, allegedly in an accident. [135] She later tweeted that she mistakenly had tweeted an old photo. [136] Ma'an News Agency reported a week later that the hospital medical report on the dead girl read that she died “due to falling from a high area during the Israeli strike on Gaza”. There are differing accounts of how the Israeli air strike, reported to be as little as 100 meters away, may have caused the accident. Israel has denied having any involvement in the girl's death. [137]
The Qassam rocket is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired to target specific military objectives in or near civilian areas, and are "indiscriminate when used against targets in population centers".
Eshkol Regional Council is a regional council in the north-western Negev, in Israel's Southern District. The regional council's territory lies midway between Ashkelon and Beersheba, bounded on the west by the Gaza Strip while the eastern border abuts the territory of the Bnei Shimon Regional Council. Due to its proximity to the Gaza Strip, the region has experienced numerous sporadic waves of violence, primarily as a result of rocket attacks, mortar strikes, and fires caused by incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza Strip. These waves of violence often result in widespread damage to farms and structures within the region.
Iron Dome is an Israeli mobile all-weather air defense system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 to 70 kilometres (2–43 mi) away and whose trajectory would take them to an Israeli populated area. From 2011 to 2021, the United States contributed a total of US$1.6 billion to the Iron Dome defense system, with another US$1 billion approved by the US Congress in 2022.
Since 2001, Palestinian militants have launched tens of thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip as part of the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The attacks, widely condemned for targeting civilians, have been described as terrorism by the United Nations, the European Union, and Israeli officials, and are defined as war crimes by human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The international community considers indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets to be illegal under international law. Palestinian militants say rocket attacks are a response to Israel's blockade of Gaza, but the Palestinian Authority has condemned them and says rocket attacks undermine peace.
This is a list of incidents Israelis and Palestinians in 2011 as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
The Shaar HaNegev school bus attack was a missile attack on 7 April 2011, in which Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired a Kornet laser-guided anti-tank missile over the border at an Israeli school bus, killing a schoolboy.
On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border attacks with parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably twelve militants in four groups. The attacks occurred after Israel's interior security service Shin Bet had warned of an attack by militants in the region and Israeli troops had been stationed in the area. The militants first opened fire at an Egged No. 392 bus as it was traveling on Highway 12 in the Negev near Eilat. Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians. Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special unit police sniper and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack. The Israel Defense Forces reported eight attackers killed, and Egyptian security forces reported killing another two.
The 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip was a military operation carried out in the Gaza Strip by the Israel Defense Forces starting on 14 November 2012, following rocket attacks on Israeli territory launched from Gaza during the preceding days.
The following is a timeline of the 2014 Gaza War. Over 2014, Palestinians suffered the highest number of civilian casualties since the Six-Day War in 1967, according to a United Nations report, given the July–August conflict, and rising tolls in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A spike in Israeli casualties also occurred. 2,256 Palestinians and 85 Israelis died, while 17,125 Palestinians, and 2,639 Israelis suffered injuries.
The Ashkelon rocket attacks were a series of rocket attacks from Gaza initiated by the ISIL affiliate Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade in 2015.
The strikes began on Friday, when Israeli air raids killed the senior militant leader Zohair al-Qaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). Israel claimed he was targeted because he was planning an attack. Militants retaliated with a fierce rocket attack on Israel's southern border communities, which seriously wounded one civilian.
The Israeli military said dozens of rockets had been fired into Israel.... Some of the rockets had been intercepted by Israel's "Iron Dome" anti-missile system, she added... The rockets were apparently fired in retaliation for the killing of PRC leaders.